Kai Havertz is out for the season – this is how Arsenal can cope with a potential disaster

When Mikel Arteta was asked how he felt after Arsenal closed out the January transfer window without making any new signings, he admitted to be “disappointed”. Now, with the news that Kai Havertz is likely to miss the rest of the 2024/25 season with a torn hamstring, one wonders if “livid” or simply “panicked” would be a more accurate description. Injuries have now left the Gunners in a hole, and their title hopes hanging by a thread.

Arsenal only made the most half-hearted of efforts to sign a new forward over the course of the winter, with their late £60m bid for Ollie Watkins either half-hearted or simply hopelessly naïve. With Gabriel Jesus’ ACL injury already ruling him out for months to come and Bukayo Saka sidelined too, failing to sign a forward felt like an abdication of their hopes of winning silverware. Now, it looks disastrously short-sighted.

Arsenal’s title hopes hang by a thread without Havertz

Havertz may not be the most consistent of strikers and his palpable lack of confidence in front of goal during the 5-1 win over Manchester City last week did not speak to the German being the ideal man to lead Arsenal’s line – but he had still scored a relatively healthy nine goals in the Premier League, and can be dangerous when his self-belief is at a higher ebb.

Now, Arsenal will have to get by without Havertz, Jesus, Saka and, for the next month or so at least, Gabriel Martinelli, who has a hamstring injury of his own. That leaves the Gunners with just three senior forwards – Leandro Trossard, Ethan Nwaneri and Raheem Sterling. Past that, their only options are to try players out of position or to attempt to promote from the Under-21s.

The last option likely won’t cut it. The next cabs off the rank are players like 20-year-old Charles Sagoe Jr., a left winger who failed to score in 18 appearances for League One side Shrewsbury Town over the first half of the season, or the gloriously-named Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand, who is more of a midfielder who occasionally plays down the right and has never turned out for the senior side.

In other words, while this fresh injury crisis may provide some chances to blood a few youngsters at the end of matches, there is no Next Nwaneri coming down the road to save them. If Arsenal wish to ensure that they have the firepower to hold on to a top four spot – let alone challenge for silverware, in Europe or at home – then they will have to rely on the players already in the first-team squad.

That would feel like a less daunting prospect if Sterling was having a better season – he has played just 218 minutes of league football without scoring – but even if the former Liverpool and Manchester City winger can recapture a percentage of his old sparkle and swagger, it would be an immense ask for the same three forwards to play almost every minute for the rest of the season. Arrtea will have to find workaround has to be found for the club to have any chance of winning the required number of games.

Trossard not the only option up front

The obvious front three until Martinelli and Saka return would consist of Sterling and Nwaneri flanking Trossard, who scored 12 in the Premier League last season and has proven himself to have the knack of scoring when Arsenal need it most, even if he isn’t necessarily the most routine of goalscorers. The issue is that Trossard could also be required on the left flank if Arteta doesn’t have sufficient faith in Sterling – a dilemma with two practical solutions.

The first is to try Myles Lewis-Skelly in a more advanced role. Arsenal have alternatives at left-back and the impressive youngster has already looked periodically threatening in the final third during his handful of starts – his sharply-taken goal in that thumping win over Manchester City hinted at more to come, even if a bad miss at the end of the EFL Cup semi-final defeat to Newcastle United provided proof, as if it were needed of such a young player, that has some rough edges in need of polishing.

But perhaps the more enticing option available is to temporarily re-imagine Martin Ødegaard as a centre-forward, while using Mikel Merino, who has past experience playing as a number ten, in the Dane’s original role.

Without Saka, Ødegaard has become the team’s beating creative heart, but he is also one of its better finisher. He may have only scored three times so far this season, but there is a reason that he managed 23 over the course of the two seasons prior – when he gets into dangerous areas, he is a dangerous finisher.

In 2022/23, Ødegaard scored 15 goals from a total xG of just 9.9, and last season he scored eight from 7.4xG. That doesn’t mean that he is a better finisher than Trossard – with the exception of the 2022/23 season, the Belgian has scored more goals, more often, albeit at a rate per minute or shooting chance that barely exceeds that which Ødegaard has managed. When it comes to sticking the ball in the net, their record is remarkably similar.

Ødegaard has the composure and the confidence to pull the role off if Trossard simply must play on the flank while Arsenal wait for Martinelli to return (or Sterling to prove that he can still hack it at the top level), and Merino, while more used to a slightly deeper role, has the touch and creative skills to function in behind the striker.

None of this would be ideal, of course – but having neglected to sign a new striker, Arsenal have put themselves in a position where ideal is no longer an option. They now have to live with the consequences of their inaction in January, and it may be costly. All Arteta can do is limit the damage and try to scrape out the wins until Martinelli and Saka return. There are, at least, signs of a Plan B that wouldn’t be too hard to pull off.